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How To Setup K-Lite Media Player to Automatically Download Subtitles?

If you want to install almost all of known multimedia codecs in MS Windows via a single application, then I don't think there are that many who can beat K-lite codec pack!. Unlike many other codecs... K-Lite developers make sure to frequently update their codecs and release new versions frequently.

Not just for playback (decoding) actually, say that you also wanted to have their (both audio and video) encoders such as MP3, Vorbis, Xvid, Divx, etc then again K-lite is pretty darn good!. Although it does not have any GUI front-ends for encoding MP3, etc (it only installs the libraries of codecs that can be used to encode files)... still you don't have to search here and there for few dozens of codecs since K-Lite installs them by default.

Anyhow, back to the story. It even has a player of its own called Media player classic. Although this refers to the MS Windows which was used to be the "default" player around Win 2000 I think (they still ship it though) but K-Lite MPC is actually as nothing to do with MS, they've just create a player of their own (which uses the MPLayer as the engine) and is released under the GNU/GPL license, it just looks like MPC, that's all :).

Anyhow lets say that you have purchased a DVD and have Ripped it so it'd fit into a CD, which is legal :) (say 700MB in size) then wouldn't it be nice if you could let MPC automatically search and download the proper subtitle when you watch it??.

Well, you can easily search for its subtitle by from the main menu : "File" -> "Subtitle database" -> "Search". This will take you directly to Google and automatically enters the name of the file that you're playing as well.

But there is another option in MPC that's disable by default (see below screenshot), which can be used to automatically search an online subtitle database (won't open any web browser unlike with the above method) within the player itself, all you have to do is just put a "check" mark on the appropriate subtitle and it'll be automatically loaded into the movie which is totally awesome than the above method.

Sorry about the black screen , the "overlay Output" won't allow me to take image/screenshots :/

So how can we "enable" it?.

Simple, just open the MPC (media player classic) and from the menu choose : "View" -> "Options"

.... and from the window you get after that, from your left go to: "Output".

Now as you can see below, by default, MPC uses the "Overlay Mixer". If we want to enable subtitle downloading in K-Lite/MPC then we have to choose either "VMR-7 (renderless)**" or "VMR-9 (renderless)**".

Note : I don't use Win 7 or Vista, but I think in those OSs you'll see few more options, but in all cases if you choose one of those above mentioned Output methods, it should just work in all MS Windows operating systems.

So, simply click on one of those output options. For this example I choose "VMR-7 (renderless)**". Now click "OK" button and also close the MPC (it has to be restarted to enable the new video render).

Double click on the MPC again, play a movie that you have now you should be able to download the subtitle in MPC! (see below screenshot).

Once you click on "Download" button, you'll be greeted with a small window showing you available subtitles (different languages, etc). Select your language and then click on "Download & Open" button. That's it (depending on your film's FPC... some of these subtitles may not show subs at the proper timing, in that case, from the list, select something else).

Another thing, you have to rename the movie that you're playing to its true name because if the file name only has a portion of your Movie or something else (number, etc), then MPC will have troubles finding the subtitle, since it's your movie file name is what it uses to search for the subtitle online. Good luck.

Note: in some countries it's illegal to download ripped movies (unless they come from a vendor who has the privileges from the original creators) but if you have a legally purchased a DVD/Blueray disk, etc, then fear not, you can Rip it and make a backup, nonetheless.